Breaking Spirit
by Oathkeeper7246
Summary: Jill Mastrano died one night at dinner, leaving Princess Jillian Dragomir in her stead. Beautiful, brave, and (crazy), Jill has to go into hiding so that the Princess part of her doesn't die too. Things won't be easy though, not with so much still left to be discovered in the Spirit World and Strigoi in the shadows. Semi-AU
1. Prologue

Author's Note: Okay, so, I'm pretty new at this and this story will probably be pretty horrid but... Ah, here's how things are going. This is a story about Jill, with lots of Eddie too (because I love them). Although I love Richelle's writings, I can't help but to feel annoyed at everything Sydney-centric. How is it that Jill died and came back to life Shadow-Kissed and is functioning quite normally with only a few flaws? It just doesn't seem possible plus Jill is my favorite character. If there's any Rose-bashing in this story, I apologize but I feel as if it is just.

Disclaimer: I do not own any characters from the Vampire Academy or Bloodlines series. If I did, I'd be an awesome ginger (I love red hair). The original plot line and characters belong to Ginger-Queen Richelle Mead. 

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Breaking Spirit

Prologue

Dim shades of purple and pink filtered streakily across the early morning sky, a bright Sun just beginning to rise in the the vast horizon. Throughout the eastern side of the United States, families everywhere were starting their day-to-day chain of actions. Breakfast was being placed onto tables and children were groggily shouting out their complaints about having to attend school so early in the morning. That was, at least, the boring reality of life in the _human world_. A reality that Jillian Mastrano Dragomir _so_ wished for at the moment.

You see, Jillian was part of an inhuman species named the Moroi. They were the second closest things to what the humans dubbed _vampires _though there were differences between the two things. Unlike true vampires, the Moroi could walk in the sunlight (even if it caused much discomfort) and they could live off "human food" along with the very delightful blood. Moroi were tall and beautiful, pale and ethereal. They shined with a kind of supernatural beauty that lured others in but they, contrary to popular belief, were not deadly to humanity. In fact, they would never dare commit the horrors that the humans believed them to. At least, Jill wouldn't. It was sinful behavior like that which terrified her to her very core and made it so that she had to be awake during the daylight hours.

'_If only people were not so cruel__'__, _she thought_, __'__then I could return home and__…' _And what? There was nothing there for her. Her birth mother had already made it quite obvious that they were better off without her. "They" being her mother and Jill's stepfather John Mastrano who could probably live in their own extended honeymoon without her there.

"Princess?" The faint voice of her newly-appointed guardian rang in her ears and she turned slowly, forcing a small smile onto her face. The boy, not much older than her, was walking towards her with the urgency he always possessed in that tense body of his. "Princess, it is almost time to-"

"It's _Jill._" She interrupted him, the fake smile quickly turning into a genuine grimace. Jill had long grown sick of all the formalities in the Royal Court and besides, she wasn't really a princess. She was born to Emily _Mastrano_, not Eric freaking _Dragomir. _If not for any of the stupid ruling laws, Jill wouldn't even have to be at court. She could attend St. Vladimir's like she normally did and…

And she'd still be treated differently than she had been before. Because everything, even at school, was about status and bloodlines. Maybe if she would've been born a Dhampir instead of a Moroi life would've been easier. Even being Eric Dragomir's child wouldn't have meant anything had she been a Dhampir.

Dhampirs were half-vampire, half-human. Originally born from a union between a moroi and human, it was now much more common for them to be born between Moroi and other Dhampirs. In Jill's opinion they were the luckiest of the types of vampires. They were strong and brave and admirable in every way possible. The Dhampirs were allowed to fight and stand up for themselves and (though Jill didn't exactly agree with it) their Moroi assignments. Jill would much rather defend herself than to have to rely on somebody else to do it, even if it meant that she…

'_No__'_, she chided herself, '_I promised myself that I wouldn__'__t think of it. I can__'__t think of it. Stop. Please just-__'_

"Stop!" She screamed out suddenly, her hands grasping at her aching head. A wave of dizziness fell upon her and she had of collapsed to her knees if it weren't for the guardians flocking her from every side. Her eyes blinked as if trying to clear out a blurry image but she was, in fact, trying to get rid of a memory.

"Princ…" Her guardian stopped himself at her sharpened glance. "Jill," he amended, taking her into his own hold, "It's okay. You're okay."

She wanted to tell him that she wasn't ever going to be _okay_ but decided to hold her tongue in case the other surrounding guardians decided to start rumors. That was the last thing anybody in her family needed- a crazy teenager. Her newly crowned sister Vasilisa already had too much on her plate as it was.

So instead Jill smiled brightly and gently pushed away the hands of her own assigned guardian. She could see the confusion in his eyes for a split second before they became emotionless again which was the average guardian stare.

"Sorry." She said, her voice accompanied by a giggle that sounded foreign to her own ears, "I thought I saw a spider coming towards me but it must be my tiredness. I didn't mean to alarm anybody."

Eddie stared at her for a few long seconds before nodding curtly. "Okay. Well, it's time to go now. The cars are ready and Rose has been impatiently demanding your presence for the past fifteen or so minutes."

And so began the new life.


	2. Chapter One

Disclaimer: I do not own Bloodlines or Vampire Academy. They belong to Queen Richelle Mead of the amazing gingers. I do, however, own signed copies of the Bloodlines series which is good enough for me.

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Breaking Spirit

Chapter One

Rose Hathaway was a force to be reckoned with when she didn't get her own way. I had always thought her to be the kind, driven-by-duty sort but now that I had spent more time analyzing her character, I could see that I was wrong. For one, Rose was selfish. If things didn't go her own way, she'd make it so that they did even if it hurt the people that she so-called "cared" about.

I was one of those unfortunate beings, not that I'd admit so much aloud. Rose had come into my life a great while ago but it was only months previous to this moment that I _really_ began to see who she truly was. Rose was a heartbreaking machine, full of power and deceitful lies that she used to curve _innocent people to do her dirty work. She was disgusting. She was__… __The only person I could ever love. I was lost without her. It wasn__'__t fair. It just wasn__'__t! _

"Jill?" The aforementioned girl herself broke me out of my trance-like state, calming the thoughts that weren't my own so that they were mere whispers in my mind. "Are you alright? You've been glaring at me for quite a while now."

"I wasn't even looking at you." I responded almost instantly, trying not to seem like the cruel hateful person i was quickly becoming. "I was looking at the wall behind you. Red is such a yucky color, you see. It reminds me of Queen Tatiana and Royal Court and… And blood. Gross." Yes, Jill. Great job. Make it seem like you're the only vampire who cant do with the color of blood after it hits oxygen. That will surely fool them into believing you to be normal.

"Ah, yes," The man whom the house belonged to spoke, his eyes crinkled in humor, "I remember the days of my youth where I felt bad for my actions regarding fragile human life. But we are not the devils that we think we are sometimes. There is a balance that needs maintenance, little one." I gaped at the elder, feeling my face begin to heat up at the attention he was giving me. "If you'd so like, we can paint the sitting room a new color of your choice. Maybe a nice shade of jade to match your…"

"Father, please." Clarence's son interrupted him, an embarrassed expression on his face. "Look at the girl's face! She almost as red as the walls!" If he had meant to save me from his father, Lee Donahue had only managed to embarrass me even more.

"Oh, don't worry. That's Jill's normal shade. I'm sure it'd be odd to see her without the blush on her…"

"Nobody cares what you think, Rose! Why are even here? Just go bother Dimitri; Everybody knows he's the only one who can actually trust you anyway!" I jumped up from my seat and rushed out of the _stupid _red room. Footsteps sounded behind me and I had only gotten to the front door when a hand touched my shoulder.

"Jill," Eddie began, his voice full of false concern, "Why are you-"

"I won't apologize if that's what you want. I have so much more that I'd like to say but I won't because I, unlike Hathaway, will not force my opinion onto those who don't want to hear it! This wouldn't be fair to any of you who don't _actually care about anything that I have to say_!" I yelled, whirling around to face the Guardian who was somehow taller than me despite his being a Dhampir. His hazel eyes were full of many emotions that I couldn't place as I stared angrily at him and soon my resolve faded. Eddie Castille hadn't done anything to deserve being yelled at by me. He hadn't been anything but kind to me ever since we met and he had been the only one who had tried to… to… "I'm sorry."

He opened his mouth to respond but halted as he took in something behind me. Somebody cleared their throat and Eddie pulled me towards him protectively. "I assume that you're the one Abe sent for. I could've sworn that S- the blonde one was coming too."

That piqued my interest. Abe Mazur was Rose's Moroi father and probably the closest thing that we vampires had to what the humans called a Mob Father. He was cruel and powerful, and mostly interacted with those who were equally as well-out. Turning, an unfamiliar young man came into view. He looked like any average human if not for the… I gasped, putting a hand to my mouth in horror. He only had one real eye; In the other socket was an unmoving glass eye.

"What happened to you?" I asked before I could stop myself. His _real_ eye narrowed at me in response, obviously either angered or offended by my inappropriate question. "I'm sorry," I amended quite quickly, "But I've never seen such an injury anywhere but on my television. We don't really get injured like _that_. Any injury we get either heals almost instantaneously or, well, kills us."

One-Eye nodded crisply, "Don't worry. I know of the easy life your… kind… faces. One of them is the one who caused this very injury, in fact." His voice carried with it an obvious tone of disgust at having to put up with us and I noticed the tattoo that I should've before: A golden lily on his left cheek. The tattoo symbolized that he was an Alchemist, one of the humans that knew we existed and carried the responsibility of… Well, I'm not sure _what_ they do. All I know is that they're not very fond of having to be around us.

"A Strigoi did this to you?" Eddie questioned, not sounding the least bit like he believed the Alchemist. The Strigoi were the most vicious of the types of vampires, with their chalky white skin and undead hearts. They were killers and thrived off of their murders. They were the monsters that haunted every Moroi's dreams, the ones that Dhampir Guardians trained to protect us from.

"That's what I said." One-Eye said just as a blonde stepped up behind him and closed the front door with a bang. I recognized the girl almost instantly and a smile spread across my face.

"Sydney!" I exclaimed, fighting the urge to wrap my arms around the human. I hadn't known her very long but she was perfectly kind to me in Michigan and had helped me get to Royal Court. Then again, maybe that wasn't a good thing. Royal Court was the start of every single problem.

"Princess Dragomir." She nodded her greetings at me, her body somehow more tense than it had been months ago. "Guardian Castille. I see you've already had the pleasure of meeting Keith here."

_Pleasure? Meeting One-Eye was supposed to have been a pleasure?_

"Not formally, Ms. Sage, but now we have been. He was actually just telling us about the Strigoi who took his eye. Quite an odd occurrence if you ask me." Eddie made his disdain for the Alchemist quite known, "Strigoi arent normally so-"

Eddie's words faded away as I was tugged from my own surroundings and into the world of the infamous Adrian Ivashkov.

* * *

He was standing outside of the Donahue house, smoking what was probably his hundredth cigarette in the past hour and a half since we'd arrived in Palm Springs, California. Adrian could feel somebody standing right behind him so, after taking one last swig of the smoke, he threw the _disgusting_ object onto the Alchemist's car. It seemed that he too wasn't very fond of One-Eye.

"Killing your lungs isn't going to make your troubles go away." Rose Hathaway stated, her voice cutting into Adrian's every nerve. "You can't escape the past, Adrian. It isn't going away anytime soon."

Adrian laughed, the sound rumbling in his chest. "I don't think I ordered an under-educated psychologist so you can go back to your stupid undead or dead or _whatever_ boyfriend and annoy him instead."

_What were the anti-Strigoi classified as? Had anybody ever actually tried to kill them or was this one of those things where you wait forever to find out actual information?_

"I think you're being really immature, Adrian." Rose said, stepping in front of the car so he was forced to look at her. "Look, I get it." Her dark eyes were smoldering and kind. "I broke your heart and you have every right to dislike me but… It's affecting Jill, Adrian. Your wallowing in despair is ruining a fifteen year-"

"Do you seriously believe that anything you say will alter how I behave? How I _feel_?" Adrian demanded, "I'm not one of your little dogs. You can't tell me what to do anymore! You are not my keeper!"

"But I sure as hell am Lissa and Jill's! I don't care what you think of me, Adrian. I only care about how the fifteen year-old inside that house is dealing with all of this shit!" She pointed at the house angrily and Adrian deflated a little bit.

_No, please, Adrian. I__'__m fine. Just deal with things the way that you need to. Don__'__t listen to her. _

"I care about her too, Rose. Possibly more than anything else right now." Adrian stated, making my heart break into tiny fragments. He already saved my life; I couldn't possibly deserve more than that. He deserved to live his life the way that he wanted to, not the way that would keep me safe from whatever. "But I can't change my life. This is how I live, how I deal with things. And I'm sure… I'm sure that she can live to deal with that fact…"

Adrian turned, beginning to walk back toward the house with his mind set on getting away from the beautiful Dhampir who had broken him in more ways than what seemed possible. But she wasn't through with him.

"Adrian, stop!" She commanded and he did, because he just couldn't help it. "You're being incredibly selfish right now. Think of Jill!"

He was thinking of me, though, not that she knew that. Adrian kept me in his thoughts for most of the day. I was his adopted little sister with access to his everything. I could ruin him but I wouldn't and he knew that. He viewed me as his complete opposite but I disagreed. We were more alike then he knew.

It was that thought that propelled me into my next involuntary action. First, I moved my hand- Adrian's hand- and reached out to touch the doorknob. His hand wrapped around it and I pulled the door open, faced with the sight of my own body standing as if paralyzed.

Sydney and Eddie looked at me- at Adrian- and I- Adrian- smiled before reaching into my bag and pulling out the water bottle I knew was in there. I opened the bottle just as Rose walked in and turned to face her.

"This is what it feels like when somebody thinks they have the right to control you." And then I extracted the water from the bottle and wrapped it around her body. She barely had time to open her mouth before I froze her drenched body. Soon after, everything went black.


End file.
